While you were watching the World Cup: The big transfers in European football
The World Cup is over, and the European transfer market is about to explode. From Real Madrid's defensive overhaul under Mourinho to Chelsea's massive spending spree and Barcelona's hunt for a new striker, here is the interim summary of the biggest moves and what's still to come.
The European transfer market only seems dormant because the World Cup has captured all the attention of fans around the world. In fact, the big teams did not go on vacation, but worked hard on closing early deals for quality reinforcements. Now, as the new season approaches and there are many fresh stars discovered at the World Cup waiting to be snapped up, things are about to heat up even more. Here is an interim summary of what you might have missed and what is still expected.
Busy: Real Madrid
Jose Mourinho has gone for a very clear direction from the moment he returned to the Bernabeu: seniority and defense. A winning recipe is not changed, even though he hasn't been winning for quite some time. Florentino Perez brought him back because he needs an authoritative figure with a clear philosophy to bring order to the locker room and discipline the unruly stars. First of all, he significantly upgraded the full-back positions, with the Dutchman Denzel Dumfries from Inter on the right and the Spanish world champion Marc Cucurella from Chelsea on the left. French center-back Ibrahima Konate arrived from Liverpool, and all three are expected to start at the expense of younger gambles that failed last season, such as Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dean Huijsen. Bernardo Silva is supposed to bring balance and wisdom to the midfield, and Mourinho himself will be tested in creating a better connection between Vinicius and Kylian Mbappe, integrating Endrick who returned from loan, and finding a suitable role for Jude Bellingham, who blossomed anew at the World Cup. But the squad is not complete and the budget needs to be balanced, so young players who grew up in the club like Raul Asencio and Gonzalo Garcia are expected to be sold, as well as Eduardo Camavinga and perhaps even Trent. Mourinho has come to make a revolution and restore respect to the Blancos.
Surprising: Barcelona
Hansi Flick and sporting director Deco started the window with interesting choices. Barcelona paid generously for two players whom no one places in the top tier of European superstars, thinking they fit the system and will flourish. A similar choice in the past — the purchase of Raphinha — turned out to be a brilliant move. And so, winger Anthony Gordon arrived from Newcastle for 80 million euros, a high sum considering he hadn't achieved much by age 25, and yesterday the acquisition of Borussia Dortmund striker Karim Adeyemi (30 million) was completed, a super-talented player who, however, remained out of the Germany squad for the World Cup. But these two reinforcements are just a temporary distraction. For many months, Barcelona has been building this summer around one name only — Julian Alvarez. The Argentine striker is intended to take the place of Robert Lewandowski who left for Chicago, and really wants to move, but Atletico refuses to listen and regularly trolls the inquiries it receives on social media. It rejected a 100 million euro offer from Barca, and media claim it won't agree to 200 million either. Barcelona is expected to wait until the end of July before giving up, but in the coming week will push hard in that direction. Meanwhile, it must also think about the weak defense, which was enough for the championship but consistently hurts it in the Champions League.
Aggressive: Chelsea
Another transfer window, another rampage by owner Todd Boehly, who believes that eventually something from all the giant purchases will stick. Xabi Alonso, humiliated after the painful half-season at Real, arrived to rebuild his career and will enjoy an unlimited budget. He has already received the biggest transfer this summer in Europe and the most expensive Brit in history, Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa, who cost 140 million euros. The wonderful midfielder has been an assist and goal machine for the last two years, but more importantly, Chelsea hopes he will return Cole Palmer to who he was before the bad season he had. Palmer and Rogers are best friends since age 14, grew up together in the Manchester City academy and also collaborated in the youth national teams. Both are very excited about the connection that could make Chelsea's midfield (along with Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez) formidable. 140 million is just the beginning, of course. The point is that Chelsea spent a lot of money, a lot, on less known young players whose intended role is unclear: Italian defender Marco Palestra cost 50 million euros, Portuguese winger Geovany Quenda 45 million, and Dutch striker Emanuel Emegha 25 million. Chelsea is destroying the market with price inflation and leaving no chance for many teams. On the other hand, it sold players for an amount similar to the purchase of Rogers. On the third hand, it never works for them. Nothing that a few more hundred million couldn't fix — because it's clear they aren't done with reinforcements.
Quiet: PSG
The European champion of the last two years doesn't need to change anything. The team was almost identical in both trophy lifts, and all it needs is continuity under Luis Enrique. The only position that is intriguing is in the attack. Goncalo Ramos gave up on his situation as a constant late substitute at PSG and the Portugal national team, and was sold for 74 million euros to Milan, where he is finally expected to be the leading striker. PSG has endless options on the wings, to which 18-year-old Ibrahim Mbaye will join more frequently this year, an outstanding player who scored for Senegal against France at the World Cup, but it is not deep at the number 9 position. And here there is a chance for reinforcement that will even propel the team upwards, with a striker who may turn out to be higher quality than the Portuguese: the first option is the American Folarin Balogun, and the second is the Spaniard Ferran Torres, scorer of the winning goal in the World Cup final, who is disappointed with the new contract Barcelona offered him and may be sold. Both of these players will not pressure for a permanent spot in the lineup and will be happy to be part of the machine.
Cautious: Arsenal
Winning the championship took a weight off Mikel Arteta's heart, who is now moving on to deal with two other challenges: continuity and breaking the jinx in the Champions League. The Gunners were so close to the long-awaited win, but Gabriel's penalty slightly tarnished the success in the Premier League (just slightly, it's still an amazing title). The system and the squad worked close to perfection last season, with tremendous defense and utilization of set pieces, and Arsenal doesn't want to touch that too much. It made the transfer of center-back/full-back Piero Hincapie from Bayer permanent, and the significant change was in the front line: Leandro Trossard was sold to Besiktas, and instead, yesterday, the Greek Christos Tzolis was purchased for 40 million euros from Club Brugge. What could still happen is one big-money transfer that Arsenal is waiting with: it hoped to sign Morgan Rogers and lost to Chelsea, and is now fighting with Liverpool for Bradley Barcola from PSG, who is looking for a team where he will play in the lineup regularly. The price is expected to be around 120 million euros.
Nervous: Tottenham
A season that was very close to relegation is all it takes to put a big club into a crisis. Manager Roberto De Zerbi arrived, and the checks started flying. It's just a pity that Manor Solomon is not in the plans. The real madness was putting 120 million euros on the hope that Sandro Tonali's huge potential would turn into a player who would lead the midfield for many years. At Newcastle, it didn't happen consistently. Alongside him in the midfield will play Matheus Fernandes, who failed to save West Ham from relegation and still cost 100 million. These are crazy amounts, and that's before we even talked about Netherlands national team defender Jan Paul van Hecke who arrived from Brighton for 60 million euros. The defense was also reinforced by the free transfers of defender Andy Robertson and center-back Marcos Senesi. Tottenham didn't come just to pass the time this season.
And what about all the others?
The heart of Manchester City in the new era under Enzo Maresca is supposed to be the central midfielder Elliot Anderson, who was fantastic at the World Cup and arrived for 135 million euros from Nottingham. Manchester United is trying to assemble a quality midfield of its own, which means that the Brazilian Andrey Santos from Chelsea (60 million) and the Belgian Youri Tielemans from Aston Villa (30 million) have already arrived, and Manu Kone from Roma is on the radar. The new Liverpool coach Andoni Iraola went hard for Osasuna striker Victor Munoz (45 million), who won the World Cup with Spain but did not participate in the tournament. French center-back Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes (70 million) is the future heir to Virgil van Dijk. Bayern Munich invested 105 million euros almost equally in Frankfurt and Germany defender Nathaniel Brown, and Eindhoven and Morocco striker Ismael Saibari. Expect many more developments in the market.
